


You Live Like You Dream Alone

by Allekha



Category: Your Life RPF
Genre: Extra Treat, Gen, Ghosts, Haunting, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-04
Updated: 2015-10-04
Packaged: 2018-04-24 19:25:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4932295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Allekha/pseuds/Allekha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You are not choosy about movies. Your 'ghost', however, is. (You do not believe in ghosts.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Live Like You Dream Alone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PinkCoffeeMosquitoJelly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PinkCoffeeMosquitoJelly/gifts).



Your new house came cheap, because it is a fixer-upper – the polite way of saying that it does not work right. You burned yourself a couple of times in the shower, and you have given up on the light in the attic, and you do not know where the draft in the pantry is coming from. But you can live with all those things.

You have always been a little spacey, and you have always had a good imagination. When you lose your phone three times in one day, you laugh to yourself and think that a ghost must be moving it. When your bedroom door creaks open at night, you imagine that someone has pushed it, though you know it is just the breeze from the window. When your fridge makes odd knocking noises, you pretend that it is powered by something more exotic than electricity.

Many odd things happen, and you brush them off and ignore them, because you do not believe in ghosts, only your odd failings, until the night you cannot ignore things any longer.

You bought a couch from a recycle shop, something cheap but pretty and long and firm. You like to stretch out on it at night and watch movies on your laptop, eating popcorn from a bowl on your lap or settling the computer on your stomach. You are not picky. You watch what Netflix recommends to you, ignoring the description and reviews and stars.

This night you watch something that is not so great, but it still entertains. The characters are more than stereotypes, and it has a plot, even if the motivations are thin and the story unrealistic. You have watched worse things than this, movies made for children with cheap special effects and cringe-worthy dialogue.

There are scratching noises in the wall. You have all of your food in rat-proof containers now; at least you have not yet seen one. You turn the volume up, but the scratching only grows louder. Just as you start to wonder how many rats could possibly live in the walls, your Goodwill lamp, missing a shade, tips neatly over the edge of the sideboard. You spring to your feet, but it is not broken, and the bulb is still intact.

When you return to your computer, Netflix offers you movies. You do not like leaving things half-finished; you find what you were watching before and resume the film. Not two minutes later, the door to your office slams shut. You jump so hard you almost fall from the couch. And then three of your books fly off their shelf and hit the opposite wall, and that is just too much.

"Look," you say, standing with your hands on your hips. "I'll change the movie if it bothers you that much. _But don't touch my books_."

There is no reply. You do not expect one. You pick up your books and choose a new movie. Everything is quiet after that.

It becomes a joke you tell yourself. You talk to your ghost while you cook, while you clean, while you attempt to make the blinds go straight. If the lamp flickers after the first scene of your Netflix choice, or the floor creaks, you laugh and switch the film to a different one. Once, you let it play anyway and your empty popcorn bowl tumbles to the carpet.

You do not believe in ghosts. Still, one night, a little tired from a long day, you slide your computer from your lap to the couch and tell the empty air, "Why don't you choose tonight? I'm going to make popcorn. But don't start without me, okay?"

You do not hear the rats as often lately. Tonight, you hear only the motor of the air popper, and you stick your hands into its warm flow of air to heat your chilled fingers. When you return to the living room, you find that your laptop is now paused on a title screen. You do not understand the title; it is a foreign language, one that you do not recognize. Netflix says it has four and a half stars. You do not read the description; you sit down cross-legged and reach out to hit play.


End file.
